Линвуд Баркли - Elevator Pitch

The photo he’d landed on was a full shot of the car, parked on the street.

“So, if you look back here, that’s Otto,” he said. “On the sidewalk.”

“May I?” Bourque asked, holding out his hand.

Terrence gave him the phone. With his index finger and thumb, Bourque enlarged the photo, zeroing in on the background. There was another car beyond the Mustang. A plain, dark sedan. One man was leaning against it, arms folded, talking to Otto, perched on the curb. The man was white, maybe six feet, gray hair. He looked to be wearing a suit. But the bigger Bourque made the picture, the less distinct it became.

“What about the car?” Delgado asked.

Bourque shifted the focus to the car. The Mustang in the foreground cut off the left half of the orangey-yellow plate, and the part that could be seen was blurry.

“New York plate,” Bourque said.

“That narrows it down,” Delgado said.

“Last two numbers 1 and 3.”

“Maybe.”

Bourque tapped the screen a couple of times. “Just want to know when... this was taken.” He squinted. “Here we go. This looks like middle of last month? The fifteenth?”

“That sounds right,” Terrence said.

Bourque said, “I’m going to email this to myself.”

“Sure, yeah, okay.”

Bourque did a few more taps, then hit Send. Seconds later, there was a familiar ding from his jacket pocket.

Terrence had never gotten a closer look at Otto’s friend, and had never learned anything about him. Same with Walter.

“Did you buy the Mustang?” Bourque asked.

Terrence grinned. “I did. Got it for two grand.”

Delgado asked, pointing toward the open door, “What’s wrong with the elevator?”

Walter shrugged. “Just routine maintenance.”

Delgado took a step closer, stuck her head beyond the door’s edge, and peered down the shaft. Twelve floors down to the bottom.

The car was twelve floors down, at the bottom.

“Yikes,” she said.

Walter chuckled. “That’s nothing. Come into Manhattan sometime. You look down, you think you can see all the way to hell.”

When they returned to their car, Delgado got behind the wheel of their unmarked cruiser, waited until Bourque was settled in beside her, then got out her phone. She began tapping at the screen.

“What?” Bourque said.

“Hang on,” she said. Her phone made a brief woop sound. She’d sent a text.

Before Bourque could quiz her again, he heard the ding of an incoming text on his own phone. He reached into his jacket, saw the one-word message from Delgado:

HI.

He looked from his phone to her.

“I heard that one,” she said. “Funny I didn’t hear the other two. In the stairwell, or on the High Line.”

She put the car in drive and hit the gas.

Save her? Or not save her?

It was incredible how many thoughts could go through one’s head so quickly. But even in the fraction of a second that Chris Vallins had to make a decision, he realized what he had here was an opportunity. As that truck bore down on Barbara, whose eyes were still focused on her damn phone, Chris saw that a solution to the mayor’s problem had presented itself. In a millisecond, this walking-talking-writing thorn in the mayor’s paw could be dead.

A gift has been handed to us.

Some gifts, it turned out, were more difficult to accept than others.

He darted into the street like an Olympic runner who’d just heard the shot from the starter’s pistol. His left arm went into the air, palm facing the truck, as if he were Superman and could stop its progress. Even if he could have, the truck swerved.

Barbara looked up from her phone.

Her head turned a couple of degrees in the direction of the truck, but there wasn’t time for her to get a full view of it. Chris had thrown his right arm around her waist. He was moving so quickly that she was literally swept off her feet.

And then, basically thrown.

It was, pretty much, a football tackle. Barbara went down, hitting the pavement just shy of the opposite corner. Chris went down with her, the knuckles of his right hand scraping the pavement, tearing his glove. Barbara let out a scream as her right elbow hit asphalt, but it was drowned out by the brake squeal, and the subsequent gunning of the engine, from the truck. It sped through the intersection. The driver, knowing that at least he hadn’t killed anyone, evidently saw no reason to hang around.

Barbara’s phone slipped from her hand and skittered across the pavement, bouncing off the curb. Her Duane Reade bag was airborne. When it landed, some twenty feet away, its contents — a box of Tampax, a stick of Halls lemon cough candies, and a bottle of shampoo — scattered across the pavement.

“Shit!” she cried. Instead of trying to get up, she rolled over onto her back. She winced as she gripped her elbow. “Fuck!”

Chris had hit the ground hard, too, but at least he knew what was coming, and had thrown himself into a roll as he struck pavement. As he slowly got to his feet, half a dozen people gathered. An elderly woman who’d gone to fetch Barbara’s phone glanced at Chris and said, “Well done!”

As she stood over Barbara, ready to hand her the phone, she asked Barbara, “Do you need an ambulance?”

“I think... I think I’m okay,” Barbara said. “It just hurts like a motherfucker, is all.”

Chris watched Barbara working her arm, try to determine whether her elbow was broken. She could move it without screaming, so that was a good sign. He was pretty sure, despite the close contact he’d had with Barbara, she’d not actually seen him. She didn’t know who had pulled her from the van’s path. The identity of her Good Samaritan could remain a mystery.

Perfect.

All he had to do was walk away, blend in with others on the sidewalk. He started heading north.

“Hey!”

Chris was pretty sure who was doing the yelling, and who was being yelled at.

“You! With the hat!”

Chris pulled the ball cap lower onto his forehead and slowly turned. Barbara had gotten to a standing position. The old woman had moved on, but a young man in a U.S. Postal Service uniform and a short, round-shouldered woman with a wheeled, wire cart full of groceries were on either side of her, offering support. Someone had gathered her Duane Reade purchases and put them back in the bag. Barbara, now standing on her own, was staring at him.

Chris slowly pointed a finger to his own chest, pretending to be puzzled.

“Yeah, you!” she said, pointing. “Jesus, you play for the Jets?”

She’s going to recognize me. Get ahead of this. Don’t let her be the one...

He took a step toward her, let his jaw drop with feigned astonishment.

“Christ, it’s you,” he said.

Barbara blinked a couple of times, as though trying to focus. “What?”

He took off the hat. “I was in the limo. Yesterday. I work for the mayor.”

Barbara’s astonishment appeared 100 percent genuine. “I don’t believe it. It is you. Uh... Chris something.”

“Vallins,” he said, moving in closer. He looked at the man and woman flanking her. “It’s okay,” he said. “I got this.”

They nodded with relief that they didn’t have to hang around.

“What the hell were you doing, walking off? You fucking saved my life.”

He shrugged. “You looked okay, so I didn’t think I was needed. Are you okay?”

“I think so, but my elbow hurts like a son of a bitch.”

“You should get it checked out. You should go to the hospital.”

“I’ve had enough of hospitals,” she said. “I just need to put some ice on it.”

Chris appeared to be considering something. “Look,” he said, “my place is only a couple of blocks from here, and if I don’t have ice, I’ve probably got some frozen dinners that’d do the trick.”